CITY DID NOT DROP BALL

THE Gold Coast is no wasteland for visiting sporting teams.

It proved that during the Commonwealth Games in April when athletes from around the world performed to sold-out stadiums.

Notable among them was the rugby sevens at CBUS Super Stadium which hosted one of the highlights of the fortnight in a nailbiting women’s rugby sevens final when New Zealand just pipped Australia.

A few weeks ago rugby league legend Johnathan Thurston’s final turnout for his North Queensland Cowboys at CBUS attracted a packed house.

So there are no excuses for not filling it during Saturday night’s rugby international when the Wallabies just went down to Argentina.

The match itself was a great spectacle – plenty of tries (except for one butchered at the death by Israel Folau but let’s not dwell further on that), plenty of excitement and a beautiful, warm night for live sport.

It deserved a full house but instead the 27,000 capacity stadium had 11,000 spare seats.

The real villian here is not the Gold Coast or apathy or difficulty getting to the venue. By all accounts, the public transport including buses from nearby worked well and promptly.

No. The blame for the lacklustre crowd numbers, albeit almost 2000 up on the 14,000 which turned out for the last Test on the Gold Coast in 2014, was Rugby Australia.

City leaders and particularly leading lights of rugby on the Gold Coast started voicing their concern in the Bulletin just under four weeks out from the fixture, wondering when the advertising would be kicking in.

Rugby Australia, admittedly strapped for cash, said it had initially embarked on a promotional strategy first and the advertising across all media would kick in three weeks out.

Too little, too late, it would seem. Rugby Australia should have been well aware of the paltry turnout to the same Wallabies versus Argentina fixture in 2014 and the need to get its marketing going much sooner.

The Bulletin did its bit sticking rugby coverage and ticket giveaways on the front page each day of the week leading up to the game.

Perhaps it helped boost the crowd just past the 16,000 mark.

The ugly incident involving a seemingly out-of-line spectator soon after the match with one of the Wallabies was unfortunate and has no place in the game.

But it should not be in anyway used as an excuse for the Gold Coast not getting another Test for another four years.

The city is blessed with world-class stadiums in CBUS at Robina and Metricon at Carrara.

Fans at the game on Saturday were right to bemoan forking out their hard-earned to attend a fixture lacking in atmosphere due to a poor turnout.

With the right promotion started early enough, Gold Coasters will respond and get along to cheer on this country’s sporting heroes.

Let’s hope next time Rugby Australia does not drop the ball.